In this Jan. 29, 2013 file photo, Gov. Rick Perry delivers the state of the state address in the house chambers at the state capitol, in Austin, Texas. With nearly two million illegal immigrants and a 1,200-mile border with Mexico, Texas has more at stake than most states in the renewed push to overhaul the nation's immigration system. Yet so far, Perry and Republicans who control the Legislature have been conspicuously sitting this debate out. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press

In this Jan. 29, 2013 file photo, Gov. Rick Perry delivers the...

Image 2 of 2

Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks on the opening day of Texas' biennial legislation season, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, Jan. 8, 2013. A boom in revenues from sales taxes as well as taxes from oil and natural gas production have given Texas a budget surplus that the state comptroller has estimated at $8.8 billion, causing a debate over what to do with the money. (Ben Sklar/The New York Times)

Texas Gov. Rick Perryhas been to the Bay Area a number of times and finds it to be "a lovely part of the state, and the country," except perhaps for San Francisco's Mission District, which he and his family found a little "sketchy" the last time they were there 15 years ago. He also says nice things to say about the rest of California. "It was the land of opportunity, the true golden bear, with lots to offer, and still does. I want California to be successful."

If only it wasn't for pesky high taxes, runaway spending, regulatory overload and "the philosophy that comes out of Sacramento - we're going to squeeze this beet and get every last drop of juice out of it."

In other words, it's not personal, it's just business as Perry visits California this week selling local companies on the virtues of setting up in Texas, which is not nearly so burdened. The pitch includes the $24,000 radio ad buy launched last week, which our Gov. Jerry Brownlikened to "barely a fart." Perry thanked Brown for what was easily a million dollars in free publicity.

"Oh, it was awesome," said Perry, during an interview in his room at the Omni Hotel in the Financial District on Monday. "I couldn't have" - pausing - "thank you, Jerry, he's the gift that keeps on giving."

Perry also wants it known that, contrary to critics, he's not engaged in unseemly job poaching. "That's semantics. I call it opportunity," he said. "When you're fishing, you go where the fish are. I'm not out here forcing anybody to rent a van and head to Texas. We're just giving a sales pitch here. It's up to them to make the decision."

And that, he said, is what his three days of meetings in California with high-tech, finance, insurance and film company executives (Perry is big on getting more movies made in Texas) is all about: "Straight-up competition between the states, the way our founding fathers envisioned it when they crafted that 10th Amendment" (which cedes to the states powers not otherwise prohibited or possessed by the federal government).

Perry wouldn't name the companies he's meeting with - in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Southern California - but one of them is Haas Automation, a $1 billion computerized machine tool manufacturer with 1,500 employees in a million-square-foot plant in Oxnard (Ventura County), which Perry has been wooing ever since Haas said it might be looking for options outside California.

"It's not something that we went out and arranged," Peter Zierhut, the company's vice president of European operations, told Pacific Coast Business Times last week. "In fact, Gov. Perry contacted us without asking to arrange a meeting. Our hope is that we can stay in California. This is home for us. But that doesn't stop us from considering all the possibilities."

The Texas recruitment effort has put California officials on high alert, because Haas would be a significant loss for the Golden State, especially as it seeks to attract more advanced manufacturing. Members of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom's Gold Team, a regional initiative Newsom launched last year with Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo (Ventura County), have already had several meetings with Haas executives.

"We're working with them," a Brown administration insider told me. "It's a day in, day out process."

And if money is a factor, Texas has much more to play with - $19 billion spent annually on keeping Texas companies, especially oil and gas, happy where they are, and luring outsiders in. That includes the $475 million "deal closing" Texas Enterprise Fund, which hands out cash grants to outside companies opening up in Texas.

Still, surveys question the impact company relocations have on any state's job numbers, and many of the 200 California companies that have opened facilities in Texas since 2004 have done so without the need for taxpayer incentives. So could the Texas money have been better spent elsewhere?

"I put it into this category - because it's not an exact science - but it's like advertising," Perry said. "How many people would have come into your sandwich store without advertising the $5 footlong? Yes, some would have. But we know advertising works. I look at incentives as just the cost of doing business.

"The better question about the Texas Enterprise Fund would be, is it a good investment for Texas? Over $16 billion worth of capital investment and 66,000 jobs are directly attributable to the fund. I would say yes." (Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers last week questioned Perry's economic development director about the claimed jobs number.)

And there have been some clunkers, like the $20 million the fund gave Southern California's Countrywide Financial in 2004 to move what Countrywide promised would be 7,500 jobs in the following six years. We know what happened to Countrywide when the housing market collapsed.

"Are we sophisticated enough to get all of them right? No," said Perry. "But I look at it like any big-, small-, medium-size company that wants to attract you to their business. The state from my perspective is not really any different."

Neither has the money stopped Texas companies from opening up in California, like Dell (recently purchased by a Menlo Park private equity firm), with its 1,000-plus employee R&D center in Santa Clara, and Texas Instruments, which also opened a research center in Santa Clara and gave $2.2 million to a UC Berkeley electronic research lab. So, isn't this a two-way street?

"Yes, it is, and I would suggest if California got its spending and regulatory tax structure under control - I came here in September to promote opposition to Proposition 30, I don't consider that meddling - it wouldn't even be close," said Perry.

"But until they do that, we're going to be coming out here, being this irritant, and trying to give people some options to come and to expand in Texas."